Opinion: The <i>things</i> you learn from Parisian cab drivers!

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

So there I was, standing in line for nearly an hour with about 100 people outside a busy train station in Paris, waiting for a taxi -- I’ll let that sink in -- when two or three youngish men, minds clearly altered by some substance, began shouting and gesturing menacingly at various people in line, including a professional-looking single woman who appeared to be in her 30s. The proximate cause was, uh, people not standing in the right place or something, but there was no real reason; they were just crazy and trying to get a rise out of people. I thought there was going to be violence, and mentally rehearsed some kung fu moves, but luckily they grew distracted and walked away.

Having long been a purveyor of the unoriginal theory that France’s public order today bears a striking resemblance to the bummed-out pessimism and occasional wildings of 1980s New York City (down to the shrugging cops, paralyzed onlookers, and easy accusations of racism against people who refer to the problem as ... a problem), what came next was no surprise -- the woman decided to be brave enough to ask every uniform-wearing human she could see if they could please help guard the line and maybe hunt down the menacers, because people felt destabilized about standing with their bulky possessions in the cold for nearly an hour while young men seemingly without restraint decided whether or not they were going to commit a little ultra-violence ... and, as expected, the responses ranged from irritated shrug (with matching facial expression) to snappy assertion that it’s not our responsibility, madame, and don’t you know how overworked we are?

In the end, no one stood guard, but a taxi finally came for us (after a first passed us over because he didn’t want to deal with two suitcases). In a friendly sort of way, my wife asked the driver what the deal was with the no-taxis-at-Gare-du-Nord situation, and whether it was normal to wait for an hour. ‘And what about us!’ he shot back (translation approximate). ‘What happens when we have to stand for an hour waiting for passengers!’

A few nights later, on one of those many French TV shows where a bunch of philosophers sit around a table sipping from goblets and talking loftily about politics, someone made the observation that the difference between cabbies in New York and Paris is that the former always tell you about their dreams and plans, and the latter just complain. I can neither confirm nor deny this theorem, though I always appreciate spinning the thinnest of French anecdotes into sweeping generalizations that probably don’t hold up.